by Jay Nordlinger, National Review EFL'd from his "Impromptus" column.
. . . As Merkel sits in the Congress Center, waiting to speak, she could not look more unassuming. A bit drab, very ordinary a bit of a hausfrau. But when she opens her mouth, she reveals a formidable intellect, and a good deal of heart.
I'm getting ahead of myself, just a little. I want to record that, when Klaus Schwab father of the World Economic Forum introduces Merkel, he states that she has been coming to Davos since 1993, after she joined the cabinet of Chancellor Kohl. At the time, she was a "Young Global Leader of Tomorrow" that is a category here in Davos. "And here you are today, as leader of your country!" exclaims Schwab.
The theme of Merkel's speech, essentially, is freedom. She sounds like a woman who grew up in a Communist country (which she did). Great chunks of her speech are thoroughly Reaganite, or Thatcherite. Heretofore, my impression of Merkel has been that she is a bit of what we, on the American right, would call a "squish." Sort of a German Nancy Johnson (congresswoman from Connecticut). But no: She certainly doesn't sound like that. At all.
Throughout her speech, she stresses the need for reform, and for flexibility, and for open-mindedness. In the past, Germany has been "paralyzed," she says, "by events and situations" and that's no good. She asks for "more freedom of movement, more leeway, more freedom of action." She says that "we have to remove obstacles, open windows, breathe deeply fresh air." Germans and Europeans "have to see risks as opportunities, rather than hazards."
Not that she's a wild-eyed libertarian, mind you: "We are not exempt from responsibility," and the state has a strong role to play. But the individual the creative individual "must have the liberty to take action."
She says that, "as I prepared this speech," she thought of her predecessor, "the father of the social market economy": Ludwig Erhard. He knew that freedom and responsibility required order. He wanted men and women to have the freedom to pursue their own destinies, with a state allowing them to do that.
And get a load of this, folks: This new European leader, Merkel, says that she believes in "the mature citizen," able to think for himself, and take care of himself.
And people have always feared change, such as when society changed from an agricultural one to an industrial one. And now we are undergoing another change: to a "knowledge society," meaning that we have to "rethink."
This may sound Simple Simon to you, but it seems somewhat revolutionary out of a European leader's mouth.
Merkel says that "we have too few young people," and that Germany and other European countries are saddling future generations with debt also "narrowing the room for investment and development," which is "morally indefensible."
Morally indefensible!
The economic environment must be congenial to the entrepreneur. "Increasing freedom has always led to better development in Germany." For decades, the country has bent under "overly rigid regulation," and "we must become more flexible now." Problem is, "we're binding, fettering, enormous energies in Germany," out of a social fear.
And you will especially enjoy this, I believe: "It is difficult for politicians to dismantle something they have created." Remember what conservatives said in Reagan's Washington, in the 1980s? We said that the capital had its own Brezhnev Doctrine: Once a program or agency is established, it's forever, irreversible.
Merkel: "We must get away from the idea that a directive is in place for all time, and must never be reconsidered" because such stubbornness must "lead to greater insecurity for Europe."
And here is a very simple and beautiful, and true statement from this daughter of East Germany: "Freedom is an elementary good for mankind." Later, she mentions that "I did not expect to live in a free society before I reached the age of retirement." And so she is and not just living in one, leading it.
Toward the end of her speech, she talks about James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. "Two hundred years ago, he said that the most important thing in life is to invent." Where is this invention today? Merkel says that "we Germans" built the first computer, introducing the computer age. But "when I look at Microsoft, when I look at Google I see that we haven't participated in" the ongoing revolution. And "this is a painful recognition."
Merkel enunciates a kind of credo (and I paraphrase, slightly): "I want to use my own strength, take on the risks of my own life, captain my own fate and you, the state, must see to it that I'm in a position to do that." She continues: "The task of politics is to shape conditions in which people can have hope." Europe must junk a "protectionist point of view," looking instead to "competition that fosters the best ideas within the framework of the creative imperative."
And "The Creative Imperative," as I've noted, is Klaus Schwab's theme for the Annual Meeting this year.
Whew.
The applause for Merkel is not thunderous, but significantly, I think it is sustained. Hundreds of people just don't want to stop clapping. Schwab has Merkel stand up again, and acknowledge this applause rather like a conductor encouraging a soloist.
Then, Schwab facilitates a brief exchange between the German chancellor and two businessmen from America: Henry A. McKinnell, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, and Michael Dell, of Dell Computers. McKinnell praises Merkel's "tone," saying that it is "frankly overdue in Germany," and in the rest of Europe. He says that creativity should be rewarded. You know, "it's okay to reward creativity" you don't have to stifle it, to say nothing of punish it.
Merkel, of course, couldn't agree more.
At the close of the session, Schwab asks Dell to give Merkel one piece of advice what is the one piece of advice he would impart, if he had the chance? (And he does.) Dell thinks for a moment and says, "You shouldn't earn as much when you're not working as when you're working." (We use the word "earn" loosely, please understand.) Merkel smiles, concurring: "Yes, yes: You have to have more when you work than when you don't. This principle isn't always applied in Germany, and that means we've had no real incentive." All the while, Merkel has been speaking in German. But at the end here, she smiles at Dell and says in English: "Good advice."
Ladies and gentlemen, this has been an amazing performance. Again, all of this may sound elementary to you but it's astounding, in the context of Davos, and of "Old Europe" generally. As a (right-leaning) buddy of mine remarks, Merkel, in her speech, said "freedom" about a hundred times. And she was amazingly self-critical critical of her own country, critical of countries that have pursued a similar path. She didn't blame America once, for anything. There was no self-pity, no excuse-making, no self-congratulation. No resentment, no whining, no petulance. Just clear, sweet thought.
Watch this lady, and see if she can get creaking European machinery moving, just a bit. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
01/28/2006 12:15 ||
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#1
..I rarely agree with Mr. Peters about anything, but I have a chilling suspicion he's right on this one.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2006 10:02 Comments ||
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The present confusion in the civilian mind and the true military mind respecting the purposes of armies and limits of warfare is attributable to many circumstances. Among them, no doubt, is the character of military history as it has commonly been written. Ordinary citizens are lacking in the raw experience of combat, or deficient in technical knowledge, and inclined to leave the compilation of military records to experts in such affairs. Writers on general history have tended to neglect the broader aspects of military issues; confining themselves to accounts of campaigns and battles, handled often in a cursory fashion, they have usually written on the wars of their respective countries in order to glorify their prowess, with little or no reference to the question whether these wars were conducted in the military way of high efficiency or in the militaristic way, which wastes blood and treasure.
Even more often, in recent times, general historians have neglected military affairs and restricted their reflections to what they are pleased to call the causes and consequences of wars; or they have even omitted them altogether. This neglect may be ascribed to many sources. The first is, perhaps, a recognition of the brutal fact that the old descriptions of campaigns are actually of so little value civilian and military alike. Another has been the growing emphasis on economic and social fields deemed normal and the distaste of economic and social historians for war, which appears so disturbing to the normal course of events. Although Adam Smith included a chapter on the subject of military defense in his Wealth of Nations as a regular part of the subject, modern economists concentrate on capital, wages, interest, rent, and other features of peaceful pursuits, largely forgetting war as a phase of all economy, ancient or modern. When the mention the subject of armies and military defense, these are commonly referred to as institutions and actions which interrupt the regular balance of economic life. And the third source of indifference is the effort of pacifists and peace advocates to exclude wars and military affairs from general histories, with the view to uprooting any military or militaristic tendencies from the public mind, on the curious assumption that by ignoring realties the realties themselves will disappear.
This lack of a general fund of widely disseminated military information is perilous to the maintenance of civilian power in government. The civilian mind, presumably concerned with the maintenance of peace and the shaping of policies by the limits of efficient military defense, can derive no instruction from acrimonious disputes between militarists, limitless in their demands, and pacifists, lost in utopian visions. Where the civilians fail to comprehend and guide military policy, the true military men, distinguished from the militarists, are also imperiled. For these the executioners of civilian will, dedicated to the preparation of defense and war with the utmost regard for efficiency, are dependent upon the former.
Again, and again, the military men have seen themselves hurled into war by ambitions, passions, and blunders of civilian governments, almost wholly uninformed as to the limits of their military potentials and almost recklessly indifferent to the military requirements of the wars they let loose. Aware that they may again be thrown by civilians into an unforeseen conflict, perhaps with a foe they have not envisaged, these realistic military men find themselves unable to do anything save demand all the men, guns, and supplies they can possibly wring from the civilians, in the hope that they may be prepared or half prepared for whatever may befall them. In so doing they inevitably find themselves associated with militaristic military men who demand all they can get merely for the sake of having it without reference to ends.
Vagts, Alfred, History of Militarism, rev. 1959, Free Press, NY, pp 33-34.
#3
that's a really good article, don't miss page 2. I think he's waaaay too pessimistic and ignores what is going right - but here really captures what is going wrong.
Say what you want, but this is a holy war. It's Christ against Mohammed. It's the same exact fight, regardless of what "faith" you believe in. You either embrace the individual ideals of tolerance and forgiveness or you embrace blame and revenge. I know many Jews/atheists who adhere to Christ's teachings better than I.
Islamists/Elites say they are for tolerance and forgiveness but only they want to enforce that OTHERS to embody those traits. Practicing Christians try to dig deep to enforce it in themselves. I hate Joe Smoe because he hurt me in some way. God help me to forgive him v/s I hate Joe Smoe, I'm going to sabotage him to get even. You are on Christ's side of this battle if you think tolerance and forgiveness are something you, yourself have to dig deep for. You are on Mohammed's side if you think that tolerance and forgiveness are something "we all" (ie: others) need to embrace or something that needs laws and juries to enforce.
Age old battle - good v/s evil. Christ just had a better way of preventing the wars.
#4
The problem is neither a lack of will or of the limitations of technology. The problem is the wrong kind of technology.
To start with, if you examine the US Navy, the trend would seem to be that eventually we would have only one ship, of amazing technological advancement, and of immeasureable expense. But how impregnable is *any* ship? If we were to lose just that one, we would be helpless.
But seriously, how many of our highly advanced and expensive ships could we lose right now without compromising our ability to force project? A mere twenty or thirty?
In World War II, the US lost 5 aircraft carriers, 6 escort aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 70 destroyers, 11 destroyer escorts, and 52 submarines. Not including the rest of the ships:
http://www.navsource.org/Naval/losses.htm#bb
We right now have the largest navy in the world, but if that navy was degraded, with many ships lost, how quickly could they be replaced? As in WWII, could we "crank out" expendable combat vessels seemingly overnight, if our enemy did the same?
But from the straightforward to the ridiculous, what if our entire military paradigm, the preservation of as many enemy lives as possible, was turned on its head? That is, if we were forced into a war with an army of such immense size that we would have to cut them down like blades of grass?
China, for example, could theoretically field an army of perhaps 300 million men. And even equipped with swords and knives, how could we fight such an army?
300 million expendable men.
What monstrous state of affairs could lead to this is not the question. The questions is what to do, technologically, to overcome this problem?
#5
I think RP is wrong though I certainly respect his opinion. He ignores two simple facts: 1) the supply of suicide bombers is limited and 2) it isn't easy to increase that supply.
Consider the experience of the Paleo splodydopes. The men who groom and train the dopes to explode started running out of candidates, to the point that they had to bring into training women (they managed to find a way to square that with their beliefs), then children, then retarded children. As appealing as 72 virgins and the glory of being a shahid were, they couldn't convince the average Mahmoud to give up his pestilent life on earth and strap on a bomb.
We recognize the courage and honor of a Nathan Hale or a soldier who jumps on a live grenade because, in addition to the innate heroism and humanity, it is rare. Not many men or women will do that. Most of us want to live.
So too in the Muslim lands. The Qur'an may glorify death in jihad, but hundreds of millions of Muslims have declined the offer. They have better things to do.
So the supply of would-be suicide bombers is limited. Human nature comes into this, best typlified by the Arab notion of the 'strong horse'. That's another way of saying that most people want to be on the winning side. It's one thing to strap on a bomb in the belief that your action is going to mean something, and another to know that your side is getting its ass kicked, leaving you ONLY with the consolation of 72 virgins in the after-life. Sometimes who's winning and who isn't is unclear (WWII in early 1942, for example), but it becomes difficult to recruit suicide bombers when you're clearly losing (even the Japanese began to run short of kamikazes near the end of the war).
What's interesting to me in all this isn't how many young Muslims are willing to be suicide bombers, but how few. Their impact becomes magnified, at least psychologically and at least for a while, precisely because they are so few. Again, witness the response of Israel -- from shock to horror to grim determination and jocular humor. Did the Paleo splodydopes move the Israelis? At first, clearly yes, and the Oslo accords and the hand-wringing in Israel were evidence of that. Then the Israelis became hardened and elected a leader, Ariel Sharon, who decided to put an end to that nonsense. The result -- the Paleos are further away today from their goal of a 'Palestine' from the Jordan to the Med then they've ever been. Did suicide bombing work in Israel? Not any more.
And that's the problem I have with Mr. Peters. He assumes that the suicide bomber will always be effective, especially when used against a western, democratic state. The evidence says otherwise. We become hardened to terror -- witness the Brits during 'the Blitz' in 1940. Did the bombing of London force the Brits to knuckle under? Did the wave of V-1 and V-2 attacks in 1944 bring about a collapse in morale? Not hardly. The Brits became more determined than ever.
That will be the response of our country, and why, if suicide bombings and terrorist attacks continue, our country will not elect the hand-wringer, the cut-and-run politicans, and the quasi-socialists on the Democratic left. We aren't going to knuckle under, and we won't give power to those who will.
That will be reflected in our military. Perhaps the emphasis on developing high technology is wrong, but our soldiers and Marines have had no problem getting up close and personal with our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The combination of the two is a fearsome, lethal thing to behold, and something the Islamofascists still don't understand.
Mr. Peters misses it also.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/28/2006 12:41 Comments ||
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#6
One of the worst things Peters has ever written. For one thing, he buries the conclusion in the middle of the article and then throws it away:
our revolution in military affairs appears more an indulgence than an investment. In the end, our enemies will not outfight us. We'll muster the will to do what must be done--after paying a needlessly high price in the lives of our troops and damage to our domestic infrastructure. We will not be beaten, but we may be shamed and embarrassed on a needlessly long road to victory.
Exactly the same can be written about any other war we have been forced into. We are not an inherently martial people. And peacetime defence expenditures in democracies have more to do with spreading appropriations to the maximum number of constituents than with military efficiency. But that's a minor issue by the time the drums begin to roll.
Peters also goes on to confuse the war of faith with Islam with a war of commerce with China.
Before 9/11 I thought China would be our next great adversary. But, I have come to realize that we are not destined to combat with China as we are with Islam. Just as the rational among us recognize we could not conquer the Chinese ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia"), so the rational in China recognize they could never conquer us. So we'll settle into trade tiffs with them while everybody gets rich and more Chinese and Americans become rational. For nothing makes a man so rational as profit.
But the war with Islam is an irrational war of faith versus toleration as best described in The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America. The Anglosphere has been fighting these wars since 1642. (That's about the time the Muslims started their losing streak.) The Anglosphere has yet to lose one, though they do like to make them close, at first. The Islamists have not studied our history anywhere near as much as we have studied theirs; had they done so, they would be treading with greater trepidation.
The Revolutionary hero relevant here is not Nathan Hale, but John Paul Jones, "I have not yet begun to figtht." But when we do begin to fight, the Islamists, full of futile faith, will face the implacable and remorseless foe of rationality and tolerance that, when left no other alternative, will fight for its life more viciously than any man of faith with far greater efficiency and lethality. We simply are not yet agreed that we have exhausted all the alternatives. When we are, the Islamist evil will be destroyed as utterly as fascism, slavery, bonapartism or divine right royalty. It is the length of time to reach this consensus that is so frustrating to Peters, and so many others, especially those who have seen the cost of delay. But that seems to be one of the requirements for the Anglosphere to reach its full potential for destructiveness. Whether any Muslims or Islam survive this destruction will be inconsequential by then.
#7
The Islamists have not studied our history anywhere near as much as we have studied theirs; had they done so, they would be treading with greater trepidation.
good points above. But I disagree with this point that you make, Nemble. The number one rule of warfare is know your enemy. The point he touches on that I think we ignore at our own peril is the part where he talks about the similarity between Islamists and "elites".
I disagree with him about technology, but I think we can all agree that if we are to lose this battle, it will not be lost on the battlefield. We could conclude it tomorrow with the technology we have today. But it is indeed a test of wills - and we have not proved that we have the will to win it. This war is not like any other we have ever fought. Our enemy's don't have defined uniforms or characteristics.
We are fighting anti-Americanism. With the media, elites, communists and Islamists all working against us, we could lose this battle much the same way we lost in Vietnam. This is much more like a civil war than a battle against Islamists. Remember, if only 600,000 votes in Ohio went the other way, the world would be a very different place today. And all of that technology could be in the hands of John Kerry and thus the UN. And that could easily happen in a few years.
We don't know our enemy. And worse, too many are terrified to get to know him. Good for Peters for approaching the subject. All who pride yourself in being above the discussion of faiths in this war are kidding yourself. The topic terrifies people. Mention it and you can see people scramble from the room like cockroaches when you switch on the light. It's as if to discuss the matter, you will be mugged by a group of blue haired grannies, cheered on Pat Roberts and dragged to an altar. All I can say is that we better get over that if we want to win.
You can't fight a war if you can't talk about the reasons it is being fought. Good for Peters for having the guts to discuss it. Nobody else does.
#8
This war is not like any other we have ever fought.
I couldn't disagree more. The weapons are different but how different are the Islamists from the communists, fascists, slave owners and divine right kings? No anti-Americans there. Men of faith and fanatics all. And where was the unity of purpose among the Anglosphere natins before their backs were pressed to the wall? No, there's far too much deja vu again.
Ultimately, we don't need to know our enemy. We only need to know how to fight him and destroy him. We do not seek to conquer our enemies. We do not seek to convert them. We seek to utterly destroy them until they unconditionally surrender. Then the understanding and conversion begins.
#9
The Islamists have not studied our history anywhere near as much as we have studied theirs; had they done so, they would be treading with greater trepidation.
Most people in the "west" have neither studied Islamic history nor Western history.
And they are most of the way down the road towards convincing themselves that the US is the second coming of Nazi Germany and the suicide bombers are all brave heroes.
OTOH, while it's all fine and good for Col. Peters to point this out, and that technological solutions _in general_ may be the wrong approach to the problem, he appears to shy away from what would be needed to counteract the whole passive-aggressive "death of a thousand cuts" approach the axis of chickenshit wishes to inflict on us.
Industrial policy? Import tarriffs? That we stop pretending we can have free trade with people who still approach foreign policy as "the game of princes" and think they're playing Civilization?
That we actually apply the sort of press controls we had in WW2, or some fraction thereof? Most of the ignorant retards in what passes for the citizenry of the West (i.e. most of them) would take this as evidence of our absolute evil.
Col. Peters maintains that we don't have a technical solution to suicide bombers attacking our troops, and that the likely response on their part to such a development would be to target more civilians.
(Actually, that part has already happened, and groups that kill many more Iraqi civilians than US soldiers are lionized as "freedom fighters" while the US is blamed for the deaths of civilians. And the people doing the lionizing go to bed at night not only telling themselves that they're more moral than everyone else, but that they're more intelligent as well. And we accept it.)
Posted by: Phil ||
01/28/2006 14:09 Comments ||
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#10
The weapons are different but how different are the Islamists from the communists, fascists, slave owners and divine right kings? No anti-Americans there.
I believe you have missed my point. First of all, I resent the comment about "converting people". I never said that and to imply that was my goal is exactly the reason that no one can discuss this in a rational manner. Besides, I think it is the good Muslim people themselves who do understand the enemy who will ultimately help us win this war. That's how it is working out in Iraq.
Furthermore, my point is that - it IS the same as communist, Islamism, fascism etc. It is dejavu all over again. It always is. There is a Satan (take your pick) that needs to be fought against. Have faith and fight for me only then can utopia be achieved. It's always the same.
In THIS war that "we" are fighting, it is "anti-Americanism". We could quibble over the semantics of that, buy I feel certain you know what I mean and I'd like to spare 6000 words describing exactly what I mean.
Moose made the point about how we don't know Islam, and I'm making the point that many war planners don't understand faith - be it communism, fascism, Islam etc. Not only do they not understand it - they are terrified to discuss it.
I think you do need to know your enemy - especially in this war, where our own elites are on exactly the same page as the Islamists.
Peters is right. But the manifestations of machine enabling warriors is awesome. Extremes on either side of the spectrum is dangerous.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/28/2006 14:34 Comments ||
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#12
Moose made the point about how we don't know Islam, and I'm making the point that many war planners don't understand faith - be it communism, fascism, Islam etc. Not only do they not understand it - they are terrified to discuss it.
I think you do need to know your enemy - especially in this war, where our own elites are on exactly the same page as the Islamists.
Precisely. You can find people on "our" side of the conflict at mosques in the Muddle East and people on "their" side of the conflict at your local branch of the Anglican Church.
Now, how do you draw the civilizational dividing lines?
Posted by: Phil ||
01/28/2006 14:46 Comments ||
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#13
From the article:
"We have reached the point (as evidenced by the first battle of Falluja) where the global media can overturn the verdict of the battlefield. We will not be defeated by suicide bombers in Iraq, but a chance remains that the international media may defeat us. Engaged with enemies to our front, we try to ignore the enemies at our back--enemies at whom we cannot return fire." (Emphasis mine)
"Cannot" would be more aptly replaced by "are not yet willing to." I'm beginning to wonder whether it is even possible for us to win the war against Islamic extremism without doing something about that domestic enemy sniping at our backs.
And I'm beginning to suspect the answer is "no."
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/28/2006 15:08 Comments ||
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#14
This war is not like any other we have ever fought
For insightful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while bringing civilization to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.
Some excerpts:
Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. Three special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.
Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermans frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nations humanitarian community.
#15
Now imagine this if the Indians had hundreds of billions of petrodollars' worth of profits each year, and a population base larger than the US, and BTW, the US is just another fish in a very short-communication-time 5 billion person pond...
Posted by: Phil ||
01/28/2006 16:35 Comments ||
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#16
Now imagine this if the Indians had hundreds of billions of petrodollars' worth of profits each year, and a population base larger than the US, and BTW, the US is just another fish in a very short-communication-time 5 billion person pond...
First of all let's remind that Muslims outnumber Americans only four or five to one. And that Americans are far, far more letal. In addition theree are lots of populations who are only nominally Muslims , or even who are increasinly seeing Islam as an instrument of Arab domination. An effort of propaganda and some support could let them to reject Islam. Our main weakness is that are not fighting the propaganda war and in fact we are letting people see America through Michael Moore's and Chomski's drivel
SEVERELY EFL'd, but worth the read by a genuine expert in the field.
By James Oberg
NBC News space analyst
Special to MSNBC
Updated: 11:25 a.m. ET Jan. 27, 2006
James Oberg
NBC News space analyst
HOUSTON - Twenty years ago, millions of television viewers were horrified to witness the live broadcast of the space shuttle Challenger exploding 73 seconds into flight, ending the lives of the seven astronauts on board. And they were equally horrified to learn in the aftermath of the disaster that the faulty design had been chosen by NASA to satisfy powerful politicians who had demanded the mission be launched, even under unsafe conditions. Meanwhile, a major factor in the disaster was that NASA had been ordered to use a weaker sealant for environmental reasons. Finally, NASA consoled itself and the nation with the realization that all frontiers are dangerous and to a certain extent, such a disaster should be accepted as inevitable.
At least, that seems to be how many people remember it, in whole or in part. Thats how the story of the Challenger is often retold, in oral tradition and broadcast news, in public speeches and in private conversations and all around the Internet. But spaceflight historians believe that each element of the opening paragraph is factually untrue or at best extremely dubious. They are myths, undeserving of popular belief and unworthy of being repeated at every anniversary of the disaster.
The flight, and the lost crewmembers, deserve proper recognition and authentic commemoration. Historians, reporters, and every citizen need to take the time this week to remember what really happened, and especially to make sure their memories are as close as humanly possible to what really did happen. If that happens, here's the way the mission may be remembered:
1. Few people actually saw the Challenger tragedy unfold live on television.
2. The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word.
3. The flight, and the astronauts lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch.
4. The design of the booster, while possessing flaws subject to improvement, was neither especially dangerous if operated properly, nor the result of political interference.
5. Replacement of the original asbestos-bearing putty in the booster seals was unrelated to the failure.
6. There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
7. Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management the disaster should have been avoidable.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2006 08:55 ||
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Does'nt matter if it was live or not. 73 seconds or 303 seconds. On that day 20 years ago we lost some hero's. I had just Ets'D from the 82d and was at the reserve center to watch it depart. We all just stood there and cried. Dangerous profession and brave Americans, God bless them. I was glad to see at the end of it all we continued to move forward with the program.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/28/2006 17:05 Comments ||
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Anxious to cultivate his populist image, Irans new President Ahmadinejad has promised to hold the monthly sessions of his Cabinet in provincial capitals rather than Tehran.
Now, however, it seems as if, for reasons of security, he may not be able to take his road show to all of Irans 30 provinces. A session scheduled to take place in the province of Kurdistan last month had to be rescheduled at the last minute, supposedly because the relevant documents were not ready in time. And last week the president was forced to cancel another session, due to take place in Ahvaz, capital of the Khuzistan province, ostensibly for bad weather.
In both cases, however, factors other than bureaucratic delay and bad weather may have been at work.
The province of Kurdistan has been a scene of sporadic anti-government demonstrations since last June. At least 40 people have reportedly died in clashes with the security forces while more than 700 have been arrested. The authorities have also closed down a number of Kurdish-language publications, in contrast with Ahmadinejads promise not to organize a crackdown against the press.
Ahvaz, for its part, has witnessed a series of bomb attacks and terrorist operations during the past four months with several clandestine organizations calling on the provinces ethnic Arabs to revolt against Ahmadinejads repressive policies.
It is not yet clear whether or not the current unrest in Kurdistan and Khuzistan might have a major ethnic ingredient.
Iranian Kurds number around six million, or some nine percent of the population, and are divided in four provinces plus important communities in far away Tehran and Khorassan. The last time that Iranian Kurds were seduced by on a large scale by ethnic policies was in the mid-1940s when, with help from the Soviet Union, they set up a republic of their own in the city of Mahabad.
The republic folded after one year and nine of its 12 leaders were hanged in public. But its memory has lived on and continues to inspire a small but determined number of Iranian Kurds who feel that they are getting a rough deal from the Khomeinist ruling elite in Tehran.
As for ethnic Arabs, they number some three million or over four percent of the total population. At least half live in Khuzistan with others scattered in four provinces stretched along the Gulf.
Unlike the Kurds, Irans Arabs do not have any secessionist history. On the contrary they emerged as the most ardent defenders of Irans unity in the 1940s when the Soviet Union was busy promoting secessionist republics in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan. Bound to the majority of Iranians by their Shiite faith and a long history of intermarriage, the Khuzistan Arabs also played a leading role in the oil nationalization movement in the 1950s and, later, in defending Iran against Saddam Husseins invading armies in the 1980s.
During the Khomeinist revolution of 1978-79 both ethnic Kurds and Arabs stayed largely on the sidelines. The Kurds, a majority of whom are Sunni Muslims, were wary of a regime headed by Shiites. The Arabs, for their part, feared that a purely religious regime might try to restrict the wide measure of individual and social freedoms that Khuzistan, as one of Irans most advanced provinces, had built over the decades.
After an initial series of local revolts, all crushed with exceptional brutality, the Kurds resigned themselves to life under the Khomeinist regime. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the regime managed to decapitate the Kurdish political leadership through a series of assassinations inside and outside Iran.
In the past two to three years, however, Irans Kurdish-majority areas have witnessed an upsurge of political activity. One reason is the leading role that Iraqi Kurds have assumed in the new Iraqi system. Another is Ahmadinejads avowed devotion to the cult of the Hidden Imam and his claim of legitimacy on that score. The Kurds, however, do not believe in the concept of the Hidden Imam which they regard as un-Islamic and fear that the new cult may provide a cover for attacks against their own religious beliefs and culture.
Ahmadinejad would be wrong to dismiss or minimize the threat of ethnic dissent in the Islamic Republic. Irans ethnic minorities, including the Kurds, the Arabs, the Turkmen and the Baluch, account for at least 12 percent of the population.
Located along the countrys long and porous borders these communities could be open to manipulation by anyone who wishes to weaken Iran or pay back in the same currency the Islamic Republic for its machinations in neighboring countries.
Political expediency, not to mention justice and human rights, demands that urgent attention be paid to the legitimate grievances of Irans ethnic minorities. It took Turkey some 30 years of war to understand that it cannot force its Kurdish minority to abandon their identity and become ersatz Turks. It has taken Iraq almost 80 years of tragic experiments to recognize the Kurds as a distinct people deserving full cultural and national rights. In the long run Irans unity could only be preserved in the context of pluralist diversity.
In the meantime a word of warning is called for to all those who might think that playing the ethnic and sectarian cards against Ahmadinejads new militancy might help knock some sense into Tehran. Any attempt at encouraging secessionism in the Iranian periphery could only mobilize the mainstream nationalism of Iranians in support of a regime that, its feigned defiance notwithstanding, has lost much of its original support base.
Ahmadinejads so-called second revolution may have little in the way of positive creativity to offer inside or outside Iran. But it still has large reserves of negative energy that could be deployed in the service of a destructive policy in the region as a whole.
Fanning the fires of ethnic and sectarian resentment against Tehran is not difficult especially at a time that Ahmadinejad seems determined to lead the nation into an unnecessary conflict with the rest of the world. A Yugoslav-style scenario for Iran may help speed up the demise of the Islamic Republic. But it could unleash much darker forces of nationalism and religious zealotry that could plunge the entire region into years if not decades of bloody crises.
The current fever provoked in Iran by Ahmadinejad and his pseudo-messianic message is little more than an epiphenomenon which, given patience and wisdom, could be contained and neutralized. Here is a monster that feeds and grows on crisis and conflict. The answer is not to lead it to a banquet table but to starve it.
#1
..Gawd, that's grim. And sadly, probably right.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/28/2006 8:10 Comments ||
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#2
I'd like to note that he begins by blaming the right, twice. First that it isn't strong enough against Iran, and second that it was too strong against Iraq. That is the Hillary Clinton argument.
From thence, his conclusions and formulations are typical of the left: "Let's go in there and have a quick, 50-minute war that resolves everything to emotional satisfaction, and still have time for the commercial break."
Today, this is how the left views foreign policy, as something episodic, like an hour-long television show. At the beginning of a show, everything is exactly as it was at the start of last week's show, then someone enters the President's office and says "Mr President, we have a problem!"
Then he must solve the problem in the next hour, before the audience gets bored. Once solved, however, it is solved for good. Except next week, everything is back to normal, last week's episode is forgotten, and some new problem is on the horizon.
I know it is a surreal comparison, but how far from the truth? Madelyn Albright seemed to believe that the solution to all problems was to send a dozen US Soldiers or Marines somewhere to just stand there, uselessly, without support. She sent such deployments to every corner of the world to accomplish nothing. One of the first acts of George W. Bush was to recall all of these personnel back to their units.
Now, compare this with what the right has been doing for the past year, that is, preparing for a possible war. The administration has had the Pentagon working overtime in preparation; it has had the State Department working triple time to avoid war, if at all possible.
All quiet planning, minimal hoo-hah and emotional gratification. Preparing for a war that could last two years of bitter conflict, result in horrific damage to the world's economy, and become an opportunity for every villain in the world to make mischief because of the distraction.
There is no joy in this, no thrill, no great emotional satisfaction with tidying up all of the loose ends. It is all harsh reality, death and destruction, but always with the mind to stop worse death and destruction--saving not only the lives of as many of our people as possible, but as many enemy lives, civilian and military, as possible.
And where is the left while this is all taking place? Skiing in Davos. Log-jamming the congress as much as possible. Whining that our troops are still in Iraq, and that we should leave the Iraqis "to fight their civil war", to quote John Murtha.
#3
Did we read the same article? The one I read ended:
Because in the end, preparation for war, by which I mean not military feasibility planning, or political and diplomatic manoeuvres but a psychological readiness, a personal willingness on all our parts to bear the terrible burdens that it will surely impose, may be our last real chance to ensure that we can avoid one.
While not Churchillian, this doesn't sound to me like someone preparing for a 50 minute war.
#4
My greatest fear is the "unsigned" attack. What do we do if a city is destroyed and nobody takes responsibility?
We can, after the fact, identify the source of the nuclear material used to make a bomb. We should tell Iran that any strike from a weapon built with Iranian material will be considered an attack by Iran. It would give the mullahs one reason to keep track of things.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
01/28/2006 9:30 Comments ||
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#6
War? We were at war with Japan until the A-bomb fix. Then we had peace by nuclear-diplomacy.
The Bush regime isn't going to take Iran's genocidal threats sitting down. And there are no large preparations going on. Add our overwhelming technological advantage, and we can do exactly to Iranians what we did to the Japanese. And the latter is a friendly, de-militarized state.
Does anyone here have a problem with nuclear-diplomacy? Look, we would use limited resources and would not put ground troops at risk. And the practice would hardly be characterizable as bullying or extortion, given Ahmadnutbar's genocidal threats. The Mullahs talk tough, but they have nothing to back it up.
Grunt-speak from the Officer's Club website, reveals fear of a do-nothing response. As much as I admire those guys; that CAN'T happen.
http://officersclub.blogspot.com/
Check out this book if you can find it:
The Winning Weapon : The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945-1950 (ISBN: 0691022860)
Herken, Gregg
NUCLEAR-DIPLOMACY: who's with me? Remember, little combat risk, abject surrender from the lowest form of human life to walk the earth. The Chinese get to keep their projects intact.
#7
HA! I pointed this out yesterday - or was it this morning. The new dem talking points are that Bush was not strong enough. This change in talking points came out right after the poll that 57% (not adjusted for usual poll manipulations) support war against Iran.
I guess they are going to try to make the point that Hillary will be stronger. Good luck with that. Best counter argument I've heard to the argument was Newt on Fox. He said (something like) they supported the war in Iraq and then changed their minds once we were over there. Who is to say they won't do it again.
Expect more articles/talk that you agree with from dems supporting the war. But don't be a sucker.
#8
..if a city is destroyed and nobody takes responsibility?
There's no "if" here. No one would be dumb enough to admit either guilt or complicity in any sort of attack with a small nuclear device on an American city, even unhinged idiots like the Iranian leadership.
#9
Baker is right, but he underestimates the American citizenry if he thinks it doesn't anticipate such an event.
But Ledeen is right too. Michael has long contended a regional confict and he is right: a Syria-Iran-SoLe/PA conflict, major and frequent terrorism events on Western soil.
Better to kick the door open soon rather than increase the probability of WMD.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/28/2006 18:32 Comments ||
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#1
yes, well done. Too bad Amnesty shot their reputation and allowed it to bleed to death. People might actually be willing to listen to their proposal to get the arms trade under control - rather than just automatically assuming that it is going to be as silly and meaningless as everything else they have done recently.
#3
The Instaprofessor's stated position, iirc, is that if every citizen of the world were extended the protection of gun ownership, a lot of the problems with authoritarians and dictators would be history. I note that even during the height of the insurgency in Iraq, we still allowed each homeowner, head of family, to keep an AK47 and ammo. Our casualties have mainly been IED. And there have been records of local people capturing or fighting the foreigners who've created the problem in country. Hmmmm....
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
